


Let Them Eat Cake

by Who_Needs_Reality



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, jealous!Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: Bellamy and Clarke hate each other, Valentine's Day, and capitalism, in that order.They do like free dessert though.





	Let Them Eat Cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asroarke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asroarke/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day Alex!! Sorry this is late, but I hope you like it <3 <3

The first time it happens, the day it all starts, is the year Miller tries to set him up on Tinder. Bellamy stares at his friend for a full minute, trying to comprehend how _Miller_ \-- who actively tries to make known how apathetic and disinterested he is regarding Bellamy’s personal life -- could possibly want him to do this.

“I’m just trying to be a concerned friend, man.”

“It’s fucking weird,” Bellamy grumbles, snatching his phone back and wiping it down on his jeans as if that will help.

“Fine,” Miller huffs, “see if I ever try to help make your life happy and fulfilling again.”

“My life is happy and fulfilling now.”

“Yeah? And what are your plans for next week, huh?”

“I knew it!” Bellamy snaps a finger and points at him like he’s just caught him out in a court of law, “I knew this was about your romantic agenda.”

Miller cocks an eyebrow. “You’re unhinged.”  
  
Bellamy scoffs. “Ever since you and Jackson got together you’ve felt like your grumpy old man credentials are being threatened so you’re trying to drag my ass into the world of romantic bliss with you. It’s the Valentine’s effect. Like a disease.”

“What, a man can’t just want his best friend to be _happy_?”

“Pimping me out to a bunch of anonymous internet randos is supposed to make me happy?”

Miller rolls his eyes. “Considering I was the theatre nerd in high school, you sure did turn out to be the bigger drama queen.”

If Bellamy’s being logical, then maybe Miller has a point. Not about the Tinder -- because seriously, _no_ \-- but about the overreacting. It’s not like Bellamy is opposed to the idea of romance on like, a global scale but.

Yeah, the whole Valentine’s Day thing has never really done it for him. He wouldn’t say he’s one of those people that hates major holidays just because he can or anything -- he loves Christmas, genuinely enjoys cooking for everyone and giving and receiving presents and spending the day with friends and family. He can enjoy Thanksgiving, as long as he ensures he gets his annual rant about Columbus being a monumental colonising asshole in before carving the Turkey. Heck, even the Fourth of July fireworks offer a certain charm. But there’s just something about Valentine’s Day that feels… _soulless_. If people are in happy relationships, they should be doing cutesy romantic things anyway. Forcing everyone to participate in what is essentially a widespread sales opportunity manufactured by the long arms of corporate America, designed to sell chocolates that will be eaten in days, flowers that will rot, and teddy bears that will take up space until they’re eventually discarded -- yeah that’s not his idea of a good time.

“And besides,” he adds after he’s a couple of beers in, “it’s not like the story of Saint Valentine was a romantic one. He married couples in secret so that the husbands could avoid being drafted. It’s like… Roman green card weddings. And the idea of sending Valentine’s came from him sending a letter to a blind child he felt bad for like… why have we let this get so out of hand, huh?”

“I’m sorry, are you still talking?” Raven asks. Wells nudges her, and she shrugs, unapologetic. “I mean, I get you hate Valentine’s Day or whatever, a lot of people do. But this is excessive. Not that I’m surprised you prepared a speech on like, a historical justification for hating it. But still.”

“Different strokes for different folks, I guess,” Wells says, “I quite like the idea of a special day dedicated to commemorating love.”

Raven grins and pecks him on the nose. “Of course you do, it means a day you get to celebrate _me_.”

Bellamy supposes the starry-eyed look Wells gets when he beams back down at his girlfriend would be quite sweet, if he didn’t find it so utterly nauseating.

Suddenly, Wells’ eyes widen and he lets out a splutter of laughter before clapping a hand over his mouth.

“What?” Bellamy asks.

“Nothing,” he lowers his hand, but Bellamy can see his lips twitching like they’re desperate to break open into chortles.

“Share with the class, babe,” Raven urges him.

“Well…” he chuckles. “It’s just… you remind me of someone.”

Raven furrows her brow at him, and Wells gives her a _think about it!_ Look. Realisation dawns on her face, and she  _cackles_.

“Oh my god,” she says, practically wheezing. “How did I miss this? You’re so right?”

“What are you talking about?” Bellamy demands.

Raven looks like a cat that’s especially enjoying toying with an unsuspecting budgie. “We all know someone else who gets ass torn up about V-Day as you do, that’s all.”

Their amusement is still suspicious, and Bellamy squints between them, scowling at their shaking shoulders and poorly muffled guffaws like they’ve personally offended him. Which, to be fair, they have.

“ _Who_?”

“Just…” Wells clears his throat, “you know. Clarke.”

“ _What?!_ ” Bellamy practically bellows, his hand slamming down on the table in outrage.

“Dude, you sound exactly like her. Your weird evolved rants about how much you hate this time of here sound like you’re quoting her.”

“Okay, first of all,” Bellamy says, turning away from Raven to glare straight ahead. “The princess would be quoting  _me_. Not the other way round.”

His friend rolls her eyes at him. “Calm down Primadonna, all I’m saying is that for two people who claim to hate each other, you sure do behave _exactly the same_.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to argue, but then he’s interrupted because, well, speak of the Devil and she shall appear.

Clarke Griffin strides into the bar -- and it is a _stride_ , a sharp, neat gait that always makes her seem like she’s marching off to conduct surgery (which, for most of the week, she is).

“Hi,” she says, slipping into the chair next to Wells and opposite Bellamy, “sorry I’m late.”

“Fashionably late,” Raven grins, “we went ahead and ordered without you, sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry we were unwilling to starve in your honour Princess.”

Clarke turns to glower at him. “Blake,” she greets him, “my day just got substantially worse.”

“Likewise.”

“Shh!” Wells hisses, swatting at them both, “ _look_.”

They all turn to follow Wells’ gaze and see a man a few tables over getting down on one knee. The woman he’s with claps a hand over her mouth, and then he’s slipping a ring on her finger and the restaurant erupts in cheers.

Bellamy huffs and slides lower in his seat.

“That’s so sweet!” Wells exclaims, joining in the literal standing ovation that the couple are receiving.

“These two clearly think so,” Raven snorts, and Bellamy glances across the table to see that Clarke is the only other person in the restaurant not clapping.

She glares at him, and he scowls back, and then they both look away, arms folded across their chests.

“It’s like having children,” Wells mutters, “overgrown, stupidly pretty children.”

“Hey, look,” Raven says, pointing back at the newly-engaged couple, “that didn’t happen when _we_ got engaged.”

A waiter is presenting the beaming duo with a bottle of champagne and a small cake, offering effusive congratulations.

“We were alone, babe,” Wells points out mildly, “on a hot air balloon. That you were piloting.”

“It was awesome,” she acquiesces, “but there was no free food.”

“It’s not _free_ ,” Clarke scowls, “the prices in these restaurants are exorbitant to begin with. And think of the profits they must be making on the bar,” she raises the glass in her hand to illustrate her point, “so they can bring out token freebies and look philanthropic and then just indoctrinate other customers into believing they’re altruistic or something when it’s really just an elaborate advertising venture that we’re subsidising with our bills!”

“It’s a cake, Clarke.”

“It’s a _symbol_!” Bellamy surprises himself with both the vehemence of his outburst and the fact that it’s Clarke he’s agreeing with.

Raven throws her hands up in exasperation. “I wash my hands of you two.”

He carefully avoids making eye contact with anyone and pretends to be absorbed in his drink.

It’s hard to pin down the exact time when Bellamy would say he started hating Clarke, but it’s been that way for as long as he’s known her. He had been wary of her to begin with, Raven’s college friend who’d moved her whole life in the kind of elite, disgustingly wealthy circles that he had only ever been able to imagine. She’d spend her lives having handed to her the kinds of opportunities that Bellamy has had to claw his way up to. Everything about her infuriates him -- the way her lip curls when she thinks he’s acting too boisterous, the condescension in her tone when she tries to tell people off, the way she always draws right up close to him when they argue so he can feel the heat of her body against his chest…

“And then there were two.”

Bellamy glances up sharply at Clarke, who’s leaning back in her chair, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip.

“Where did Wells and Raven go?”

“Bathrooms.”

They sit in silence for a moment, avoiding eye contact and taking occasional sips of their drinks.

“Couldn’t find a girl willing to hang out with you this year?” Clarke’s voice is deliberately saccharine, insincere.

“Couldn’t decide which one to say yes to,” he snipes back, reveling in the way the sheer douchiness of the remark makes her lips purse in a mouée of dissatisfaction. “And anyway. I don’t need a dumbass holiday to show a girl a good time.

“No,” she quips, “you’d need a _miracle_.”

“Yeah, I doubt anyone could compete with the real high bar that Collins set.”

She shoves back off her seat. “You’re a total asshole, Blake. Tell Raven and Wells I said goodnight.”

Bellamy sighs as she leaves. Okay, so he did take it a bit far. He’s not proud of it -- Clarke’s got a lot of problems, but it’s sure as fuck not her fault that her ex was a two-timing asshole.

“What did you do?” Raven asks when she and Wells return after a suspiciously long sojourn in the restrooms.

“Fucked up,” he admits, “don’t yell at me, I’m fixing it.”

*

Considering how close Clarke’s apartment is to his, Bellamy has to admit it says a lot about their mutual stubbornness that he’s never seen it before. The building is nice, but not quite as fancy as he was expecting the princess’s palace to look.

“Yeah?” her voice crackles through the intercom.

He winces slightly, wondering if she might just leave his ass in the cold. “It’s me.”

She pauses for a moment, but he’s pretty sure he knows who ‘me’ is. After a minute, she buzzes him up.

Clarke’s already at the open door of her apartment when he gets upstairs. He almost does a double-take when he sees her, her hair thrown up in a haphazard bun, an oversized paint-splattered t-shirt and a tiny pair of sleep-shorts revealing the uninterrupted stretch of her legs. It’s the first time he’s ever seen her like this, disheveled and relaxed, imperfect. It makes him stare for a moment.

“What?” she asks.

He shakes himself. “I wanted to apologise,” he says, gruff, “for throwing the Finn thing in your face. It was a dick move and I shouldn’t have gone there.”

“Go on,” she says, folding her arms across her chest, “apologise.”

He swallows a retort. “I’m sorry,” he grits out, “for being a dick.”

“Apology accepted.”

They stand in silence for a moment, and Bellamy turns awkwardly to walk away, but then Clarke says “wait!”

He turns around.

“I have an idea,” she says.

“What?”

“Valentine’s Day.”

“Is tomorrow.”

“And you agree it’s an idiotic holiday, yes?”

He leans backward so he can get a proper look at her. “Obviously.”

“What would you say if we undermined the entire stupid thing?”

Bellamy frowns. “What do you mean?”

She waves the phone in her hand. “Even now I have my mom texting me dropping subtle hints to see if I’m dating anyone. Not asking about my job, or my friends, or anything else. No, asking if I’m _dating_ anyone like that’s the benchmark of happiness. And the whole day is systematically constructed for bullshit like that -- _rewarding_ people for being in relationships like it’s some kind of fucking achievement. And I’m so damn tired of it.”

She’s gotten more and more worked up during the whole tirade, hair escaping from her bun in wisps of flyaway and an angry flush staining her cheeks.

“So what’s your plan, Princess?”

She grins, feral and sharp, leaning in close. “Be my date.”

“Huh?”

“And then propose.”

“ _What_?”

“Think about it,” she says, “fancy restaurant, you propose, they bring free champagne and cake, and we get proof that the authenticity of love doesn’t matter, it’s all for show anyway.”

“If you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend for free dessert, Princess, just ask.”

She huffs. “The free dessert is a plus, but dismantling the capitalistic machine is the goal.”

He can’t help but grinning at that. “There’s a fundamental flaw in your plan, Princess.”

“Which is?”

“We hate each other.”

She shrugs. “You’re a dick. But the point is, we also hate Valentine’s Day. We can put aside our differences for the greater good.”

He considers for a moment, and then, in what he can only assume is a moment of sheer madness, shrugs and says, “you’re on, Princess.”

*

They meet outside the restaurant at eight, and Clarke hands him a paste-diamond ring in a box.

“You came prepared.”

She adjusts her dress carefully. It’s strapless and does amazing things for her cleavage, and he has to force himself to look away.

“I don’t do things by halves.” She takes a look at him, and Bellamy is gratified to see that she definitely checks him out. “You clean up okay.”

He snorts. “Slow down Princess, I might get a big head.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Think you can manage to act boyfriend-y for a couple of hours?”

“I don’t do things by halves.”

The host shows them to a table, and it’s decked up in full Valentine’s fashion, a red rose in a slender vase and a couple of wax candles forming an elaborate centerpiece.

Bellamy makes a point of pulling aside the host and asking if he could please drop this ring in the champagne he’s about to order for his girlfriend, and then of pulling her chair out for her, brushing a hand against her back as he helps her sit.

“Okay Blake,” she says, “dazzle me.”

*

It seems strange, but by the time the champagne comes out, Bellamy realises he’s actually had… a kind of fun night.

Clarke’s smart, he’ll give her that, and funny in a dry, sharp sort of way. There’s something about sharing a secret between them, the whole joke of the evening, that means they keep exchanging smirks, their mutual penchant for being judgemental turned on the rest of the world instead of each other.

The waiter makes a big point of presenting the champagne flutes to them with a flourish. Clarke pretends to be preoccupied with the flower arrangement, and maintains eye contact with Bellamy as he toast her and their “relationship.” She makes a show of gasping when the ring bumps against her mouth, giggling breathlessly as he fishes it out and gets down on one knee as obviously as possible, waiting for a couple of gasps to go up in the restaurant before launching off into the ridiculous proposal he had way too much fun writing.

“Clarke Elizabeth Griffin,” he says, “you are the light of my life. My true north. My angel. The past six months with you have been glimmers of hope in the cold, dead hollow of my thus far lonely, single, unfulfilling life.”

Clarke disguises her burst of laughter as a sob.

“Will you do me the unbelievable honour of becoming my wife and starting the rest of our blissfully happy life together?”

“Oh Bellamy!” she practically swoons, “yes, yes, a thousand times yes!”

It’s only at the moment that the restaurant bursts into applause that Bellamy realises the inevitable next step of this.

He has to kiss her.

Clarke seems to realise it the same time as him because, well, they can’t _not_ and they stare at each other for a moment.

And then she leans in and presses her lips against his, and his mind goes blank. It’s only brief, but her mouth is soft and warm and --

“Congratulations!” a server says, “please accept the champagne on the house as a gift from us.” The server brings out a cheesecake as well. They hi-five under the table.

They’re drunk on champagne and victory when they stumble out of the restaurant, pressing against each other and laughing.

“You know,” Clarke says, a little out of breath, “you’re a not awful fake boyfriend.”

“High praise from the Princess,” he says, and he feels himself grinning like a fool.

She pecks him on the cheek, pressing an inebriated chuckle into his skin. “You’ve earned it.”

*

By the time Valentine’s rolls round the next year, they’re definitely not nemeses anymore.

They might even be friends.

When he shows up at Clarke’s door, holding the same fake ring from last year, saying “shall we go for free mousse this time?” and she grins, he knows they definitely are.

*

It’s definitely a tradition by this point, and she’s definitely his best friend.

“We’re going to run out of restaurants at this point,” she says, squinting in the car mirror as she hooks her earrings on, “they’re going to catch on.”

“Then we should make the most of it while we’re still ahead of the game. I still think if we attempt a flash mob proposal we can land a free chocolate fountain.”

“Big dreams, huh?”

“Shoot for the moon and you’ll land among the stars.”

She laughs, and the light of a streetlamp they drive past catches her jewelry. _She’s beautiful_ , he’s reminded for the hundredth time. In a platonic, best friends way. But whatever.

It’s a fancy Japanese restaurant this time, velvet-lined booths cloistered around everywhere, and they do their usual simpery couple thing. Bellamy asks the waiter to place the ring on the cake.

“I’m just going to the restroom,” he says, leaning close to murmur in her ear. He thinks she shivers, but it’s probably his imagination.

His palms are unusually clammy for some reason, and he pauses to wipe them off on a paper towel. He adjusts his tie -- it’s a turquoise one that Clarke forced him to wear because it matches her dress, despite his protests about it being too close to a junior prom get-up.

When he re-emerges from the restroom he stops short, there’s a guy talking to Clarke.

As in _talking to_ Clarke.

The guy is tall and ripped, with a low man-bun and a suit that looks like it cost more than Bellamy’s last rent check. He’s leaning on the table saying something that makes Clarke laugh, and then he pulls up a chair.

He doesn’t know what comes over him, but Bellamy’s across the restaurant in seconds, sliding back into the booth, moving so he’s right next to her.

“Hey,” he says, voice low, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her to him for a moment.

“Hey,” she says, “miss me from all the way over there?”

“Definitely.” He kisses her cheek, but misses and lands on the underside of her jaw instead.

She swallows. “Um. This is Roan,” she nods at the guy opposite her.

“Nice to meet you,” the guy says, reaching over to shake Bellamy’s hand. “I’ve known Clarke since we were kids. We used to swim naked in a paddle pool together.” He smirks at her.

Bellamy’s jaw clenches. “Bellamy,” he says, “the boyfriend.”

“I hadn’t seen Roan in a few years,” Clarke explains, “we were just catching up.”

“That’s nice,” he says, and his hand snakes around her waist, his fingers trailing the bare skin revealed by her backless dress, raising goosebumps in their wake.

Clarke leans against him, slightly, subtly. She definitely shivers this time.

“I was Clarke’s first, you know.” Roan pauses for a moment, smirking when Clarke flips him off. “First _Valentine_ , that is.”

He makes a mental note to tell Clarke that he hates this friend of hers. Underneath the table, Bellamy’s hand comes to rest on her thigh.

“So,” Roan says, tipping his chair back slightly, “you two having a good Valentine’s?

“The best,” Clarke says. When Bellamy brushes a kiss to the juncture of her neck and her collarbone, her breath hitches.

“And it’s only gonna get better,” Bellamy says.

“Right.” Roan gets up, “it was nice catching up. But I got places to be. See you round.”

They sit in silence as he walks away.

“What’s up with you?” Clarke asks. She makes no move to pull away.

“Nothing,” he says. He tugs her closer so she’s practically sitting on his lap.

The proposal is kind of a daze, and if they weren’t so well practised in it, he thinks the ring might have slipped.

When he kisses her this time, she grasps his hair, tugs him closer. She gasps, and he takes the opportunity to taste her, to steal her breath. They break away to the sound of the usual echoes of _awws_ and gasps, and Clarke’s eyes are blown wide, her mouth swollen.

There’s a complementary dessert this time, but Bellamy doesn’t even register what it is. He has no appetite for food.

“I’m ready to go home,” Clarke says. Her breath is still ragged.

“Okay.”

They’re silent until he starts driving.

“Seriously,” she says, “what was that?”

“Nothing,” he grumbles, “just trying to make the boyfriend thing convincing.”

“For Roan?”

“There was someone there. I was trying to pull it off.”

“You really went for it.”  
  
“Sorry, did you not want Roan to think we were dating?” It comes out snappier than he means it to.

She’s quiet for a second. “Were you jealous?”

He feels the bob of his throat. “No.”

“Really?” through the corner of his eyes, he sees her lick her lips.

“It’s not my place to be jealous.”

“I know.” Her hand moves across the dash, brushes his knee. “But I wouldn’t mind if you were.”

“No?”

“No. So. Were you?”

He waits till there’s a red light so he can stare right at her. “Insanely. I don’t fucking know why. But…”

The light turns green, and he keeps going. The air feels thick, so charged it’s hard to breathe.

They pull up outside Clarke’s house, but she doesn’t move to get out straight away.

“You wanna come up?” she says.

“You sure?”

Clarke nods.

He presses her up against the door as soon as they get inside. His hands wind into her hair, revelling in messing up the elaborate hairdo and winding the curls between his fingers. She’s making these sounds, gasps and sighs from her throat that are driving him crazy, and she shoves the jacket off his shoulders.

“Hey,” he says, “hang on a sec.”

She pulls back, trembling a little.

“Yeah?”

He pauses to brush a loose blonde tendril behind her ear. “I need to know,” he swallows, “is this… this isn’t just a one night thing right? Because if it is, I… I need to know.”

“Bellamy,” she runs a thumb along the side of his face, her whole expression softening, “ _Bellamy_. How do you not get it yet?”

“Catch me up here.”

She kisses him, and it’s deeper and slower this time. “You’re my best friend. And my favourite person. And I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.”

It makes him laugh, incredulous and dazzled and _happy_. “Good,” he says, “because I love you too.”

She kisses him again, landing kisses on his cheek and his jaw and his forehead, wherever she can reach. “I’m glad we got that cleared. Can we get back to it know?”

He grins boyishly, scooping her up bridal style and carrying her to the bedroom. “Whatever the hell you want.”

*

The sixth year of their Valentine tradition, it’s a different ring. His grandmother’s to be specific, an antique silver band with a tiny sapphire. Clarke stares at it in shock when he bends down on one knee.

“We’ve hit every restaurant within a two hour drive,” he says, “I figured we might as well do the real thing while we still can.”  
  
She drops to the floor and grasps his face in her hands. “If you’re fucking with me, I swear to god I’ll kill you.”

He grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Clarke Elizabeth Griffin. You’re my best friend and I want to spend eons with you. Will you marry me?”

When she kisses him and says _yes yes yes_ against his lips, cheeks aching from smiling, the whole restaurant claps, but they barely hear it.

They don’t stick around for free dessert either.


End file.
